Hi Max: Personal edit button?

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:08 PM

Care to elaborate Max? Or will you leave it up to us to speculate the reasons...

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 03:51 PM

:)

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Max
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 03:48 PM

No

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: John Hardly
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 03:47 PM

It ain't "HISTORY" fergoshsakes! They're postings to a web bulletin by a bunch of middle-aged folks who have the common interest of music. There is little if anything of consequence written here. It ain't "literature" to be guarded. "History"? come on.

I'd sure as hell rather be able to edit my own then to have the right relinquished to someone else as it is.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 03:21 PM

"Most systems I use allow editing and don't have problems with abuse like re-writing history"

Of all the MBs I've ever visited, I've never seen anyone BOTHER to 'rewrite' history as some here are suggesting... I'd imagine that if anyone did, simply no one would bother replying to them, and their posts would fall off the page...

Oh... wait... this is mudcat... I forgot...

You're right... it'd happen all the time, and people would spend hours a day wailing and gnashing their teeth about it...

Ya know... just like now... So, I ask for those who are against/afraid of change, how would it be any different?

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 03:04 PM

There are no bandwidth issues. And for those wondering about the difficulty, if you think about it for 1/2 a minute, the facility already exists as Joe and the clones have it. It may need a bit of tuning to prevent unuthorised HTML for example but largely it would only be a matter of extending the use to others.

Whether such a change would be desirable or not is another matter. Most systems I use allow editing and don't have problems with abuse like re-writing history. In the case of Mudcat, it is rather tempting to suggest it would be useful above the line but likely to be a liability below the line...

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: nutty
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 02:57 PM

You would have to defer the posting (to the actual forum) for a certain period of time to allow for editing.
Making changes after a posting would make a total nonsense of any ensuing posts.

I'm for leaving things as they are. Changes are not always for the better.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 02:45 PM

"because it requires considerably more bandwidth to allow edit function"
I doubt that very much

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: John Hardly
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 02:20 PM

...oh, and if we had an edit function...

we'd be able to UN-respond to trolls. (since so few on this site seem to be able to restrain themselves from first impulses). That alone would be worth the price of admission -- a troll-free zone.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: John Hardly
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 02:17 PM

for what it's worth, though....

I think it's not allowed here because it requires considerably more bandwidth to allow edit function -- and that, at a time when the whole mudcat system is seemingly ready to collapse from its weight anyway.

I was once told that an edited post is a MUCH bigger file than would seem proportionate to the size of the post.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: freightdawg
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 02:16 PM

Once again McGrath of Harlow distinguishes himself as one of the most insightful contributors to this site.

Well said, M of H. Well said.

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: John Hardly
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 02:13 PM

It isn't all about "changing the record". It's about being able to correct honest errors.

Every other board has them -- when you read those "non-sequiturs" created by responding to a post that no longer reads as it once did you say to yourself, "hmmmmm, someone must have edited afterwards". No big deal. You usually even get the gist of the edit and even the probability of understanding who or what was at "fault" before the edit.

What you DON'T get is the re-current, constant resurrection of a dead horse that could have been corrected in its infancy by a simple edit -- especially on a board full of fault-finders.

And as to "changing the record", again, you usually still get the gist of the arguement once a post is responded to, but even if not, who cares? It's not like we're making law. We're chatting.

I like my posts. I like my archive. But it's a weird level of solipsitic delusion that thinks either are "important". But if they are important (our posts), they are better when corrected.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: The Shambles
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 01:59 PM

In the UK.............?

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: The Shambles
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 01:57 PM

For originators to be able to edit all aspects of their own posts - would certainly be far better than having some anonymous volunteer rush to impose their judgement upon their fellow posters - without the originators knowledge or permission.

If a personal edit button meant doing away with the need for all this current imposed censorship - then please bring it on.

Perhaps all this needless imposition can be done away with now - without any personal edit button?

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 01:49 PM

Hardly Mmario.. they may have ONCE been, but such distinctions are part of the distance past of cyberspace...

This place really should just sack up and go Php...

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: MMario
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 01:44 PM

of course since you have been here Clinton you still haven't been able to distinguish between a message board and a forum. Or if you have - you never bother to do so. They are differnet entities.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 01:41 PM

I've been asking For an Edit Post button as long as I've been here... Every message board worth it's salt has at least THAT basic feature...

"Preview"
Sometimes errors still get past...

"any semblance to real life conversation"
But this ISN'T real conversation... d'uh....

There would undoubtedly be wankers who felt the need to go back and just always change their initial post... they wouldn't be worth the time of day...

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 01:34 PM

Before we worry about changes to the existing system , why not let Max get on with sorting out the major problems we already know about ?

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 11:32 AM

A five minute post-posting editing button would be helpful, for all those times that as I push the submit button I notice I've left a "not" out of a sentence, or jumbled the spelling.   I know that conscientious use of the preview helps with that, but not when I post without previewing. As it is not infreqently I find myself sending an immediate follow-up post modified to say what I actually meant to say, trusting that a clone will remove the first one.

I'd be against is being able to edit what I wrote the next morning though. That's the kind of thing politcians do with parliamentary records, and it's fundamentally dishonest. If we post something that we wish we hadn't posted, and left it there long enough for other to read and maybe respond to, we shouldn't try to clean up the record on the quiet, we should apologise openly.

And the best thing is never to post anything in hot anger. Let it lie fallow for a few hours - if we still feel like posting some kind of cutting remarks they will probably be a lot more effectively cutting if we've slept on it. But more than likely we'll decide not to.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 11:15 AM

Uh, isn't this why we have the PREVIEW button?

Also, harpgirl, I reply to you and then you reply to me, but then later I edit my reply-- wouldn't that potentially make your post back to me a non-sequitur?

~Susan

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 11:10 AM

I see your points. Either way is cool.

Max, thanks again for this place.

Art

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:50 AM

for some folks, like me, who are 2 finger dyslexic typists, it would be nice....for others it would be like Congress (USA) ability to "revise and extend" remarks before they were printed in the Congressional record.

You have some who did massive editing and some who never did, making many threads make even less sense than they do now. You'd have replies to non-existant questions and arguements based ON what was edited or not....I think maybe editing 'might' be best limited to what the clones agree to fix...(bad HTML, silly misspellings...etc.) If you really need to change, rethink or retract a remark, copy & paste might be best...

(I'd REALLY like to know exactly what was said on the floor of the Senate before Senator Floofnagle backed down)

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:49 AM

I'll vote against it, for the reasons mentioned by Amos and GUEST above. I believe in taking responsibility for what I say and do...and apologizing if I screw up--which I do with some regularity.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:21 AM

Everything I said I meant, at the time I said it anyway!
G.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:16 AM

But an edit button would take away any semblance to real life conversation. We can't rewind in real life, but we can try and explain ourselves or admit our errors if we feel the need.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:15 AM

I think NOT being able to modify post-facto is an interesting constraint; keeps you on yer toes!!

A

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:11 AM

GOOD IDEA!!!

I've said so many things here that if I'd slept on them for a night, and looked at them the next morning, I might've changed drastically.
What I posted might've been in the heat of the moment---and not my considered opinion at all.

It's too damn easy to click once, post, and think about it later.

Art Thieme--

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: John Hardly
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 09:18 AM

I have wanted this from day one. Every other board I participate in has it. It helps with civility as well as clarity (and saves embarrassment for those of us too lazy to always put on our reading glasses)

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 09:13 AM

Actually, a good idea, even if it is from you. What I'd really like: An edit button that only lets you edit for, say, five minutes after posting, so you can touch up your post, but can't change your post drastically after a lenghty argument. ("What? I never called you a schlongwrangler! Check my post!")

---Lepus Rex

Subject: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: harpgirl
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 09:05 AM

Tweed's board has this really cool edit button that you can hit and edit your post AFTER you have posted. It would save the cloneheads a lot of work. Would it be hard to do up??

l,h